IJ study archive

the A.F.R. war aims: not territory but demonstration — the testicular frappe — "The A.F.R. were interested only in…"

quote

The A.F.R. were interested only in dealing the sort of testicular frappe to the underbelly of U.S.A. self-interests that would render Canada itself unwilling to face the U.S.A. retaliation for this

Context

The pickup's core and the clearest A.F.R. war-aims statement in the book: the A.F.R. want neither "the Convexity's return" nor "re-Reconfiguration" nor even O.N.A.N.'s "charter's dissolution" — those are the F.L.Q.'s bargainable, territorial goals. They want "the sort of testicular frappe to the underbelly of U.S.A. self-interests" that would make releasing the Entertainment so catastrophic that "Canada itself" refuses to shelter Québec, so that "Québec would be not so much allowed as required by Ottawa to secede." The strategy is jiu-jitsu on the whole O.N.A.N. structure: not to defeat the U.S. but to make Québec too dangerous to keep, freeing it by forcing Ottawa to expel it into "the wrath of a neighbor struck down by its own inability to say 'Non' to fatal pleasures." Secession by demonstration, not extortion.

Quoted from

In anthology